The Cursed

by Heather Graham

  Logan stepped in and closed the door behind him, locking it, while Kelsey waited patiently for him to speak. “Dallas here yet?” he asked.

  “He’s back at the police station.”

  Logan nodded. “I know. I just thought he might be back by now.”

  As Logan spoke, Hannah saw Dallas’s car coming down the street.

  “He’s here,” she said, surprised at just how much pleasure his return gave her, and equally surprised by the thundering of her heart. It was so loud she found herself hoping no one else heard it.

  “Good, we’re all here,” Logan said.

  Dallas saluted the officer in the patrol car, and a minute later they were all in the kitchen, since the day was hot and everyone was ready for something cold to drink.

  “Please, tell us what’s going on,” Hannah pleaded.

  “You start,” Dallas told Logan.

  “All right,” Logan said, pulling out a chair at the table.

  The others joined him.

  “I don’t think Jose’s sister is involved with Los Lobos, other than that she might have met someone who’s a part of it,” Logan said. “She’s been missing several months now. The police had her things moved into storage, and her apartment’s been rented, so there wasn’t anything for me to find there.”

  “Why do you think she’s not involved? Where do you think she is?” Hannah asked. She didn’t like the way Logan’s expression clouded over as she asked, “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what to think. She didn’t take her car or any of her belongings. Her keys were there, her makeup. Even her contact lenses. I talked to her neighbors. They’ve been worried about her. She’d told them about her past and that she’d gotten clean, but they thought she was on something the last time they saw her. So what I think is that Jose was right. Someone in Los Lobos got to her and found out she had a brother in the FBI.”

  “So they took her to get information on Jose?” Kelsey asked, but her tone said she already knew the answer.

  “That’s what I think, yes,” Logan said. “I think initially the Wolf was hoping to use her as leverage to get Jose to be his inside man at the Bureau. But from talking to her, he realized no one was ever going to be able to turn him. Then, when Blade brought Jose into the fold, the Wolf figured out that he was the brother she was talking about, and realized he knew too much and had to die.”

  “Where do you think she is?” Hannah asked.

  Logan let out a breath. “The Wolf doesn’t leave things where they can be found. Keeping a hostage would be dangerous. I believe he had her killed once he got what he needed from her.”

  “But her body has never been found,” Hannah said.

  There was silence at the table for a minute.

  “Hannah, it would be great if she were alive, if we could find her,” Dallas said. “But you’ve got the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Straits—hell, the whole Atlantic Ocean. He could have disposed of her at sea and no one will ever find her.”

  “But you’re not just going to give up on her, are you?” Hannah asked.

  “Of course not,” Dallas said.

  “Why don’t you come back up to Miami with me tomorrow?” Logan suggested to him.

  “I have a better idea. Let’s go through all the right channels and get a search warrant for the apartment. Even with new people in there, the crime scene techs can pull up the carpet, go over everything with luminol. Who knows? We might get blood. That would help us know what happened, whether she was grabbed there or not, and whether she was...hurt.”

  “Good idea. We’ll call tomorrow and get it done,” Logan agreed.

  “What about the guy you were questioning earlier?” Hannah asked Dallas. “Did you find anything out from him?”

  “A few things,” he said. He looked over at Kelsey. “I hope your buddies over at the U.S. Marshals’ office have plenty of money for witness protection,” he said.

  “I’m willing to bet that they’ll have money to stop the Wolf,” she said.

  “Basically, what I’ve gotten out of everything today is that our guy is big and strong and has blue eyes. He also knows how to dive. He has a private boat or access to one, because he wasn’t out with any of the dive captains I spoke with. They gave me some leads on other boats that were in the area that day, and the Coast Guard is looking for them now,” Dallas said. “That’s going to be tough, though. The boat could be unregistered, or he could just paint out the name and call her something different. And there are miles of coast and open water to cover. The killer could have headed into the Florida Straits or into the Gulf to make for port on the west coast of the state, up the panhandle to another state entirely...even to Mexico. Hell, he could have headed up the entire east coast to New England.”

  “Or he could be down on the docks past Front Street,” Hannah said. “This guy is obviously one of the Wolf’s key men here. He’s the one who does the dirty work.”

  “He goes by Machete,” Dallas said.

  “Whatever his name is,” Hannah said, “I’m willing to bet he’s in so deep, he’s still around.”

  “That’s a good theory,” Dallas told her. “And I hope you’re right—that he’s here in the area somewhere and we can find him—but it’s still just a theory.”

  “He’s not leaving. The Wolf wants something, and that something is here. That means Machete will be here, too, until he’s caught, killed or finds it,” Hannah said determinedly.

  “One problem,” Kelsey said.

  “What’s that?” Logan asked her.

  “If we find Machete and he’s as much in the dark as the others, we still won’t have the Wolf,” she said.

  “Yes, but the Wolf’s local army is disintegrating,” Dallas said. “He lost one man at the scene of the accident, we’ve taken two more off the streets here and I believe—now that we have names—we’ll pick up the other two tomorrow or the next day. That means he’s down five men.”

  “He’ll just recruit five more,” Kelsey said.

  “It’s not that easy to find the right people,” Dallas reminded her. He looked at Hannah. “We’re going to get him. So who should I dial for some dinner? Your people will start arriving for the tour soon.”

  She quickly rose, feeling like an awful hostess. She’d forgotten that they would need dinner.

  “I’m sure I can throw something together,” she said.

  “Hannah, we’ll call for delivery,” Kelsey said. “It’s already six-thirty.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, sure. We can call Joe’s. Pizza, subs or pasta. They’re not gourmet, but they’re good, and most of all, they’re fast.”

  They called Joe’s. It was strange. As they were ordering, Hannah felt almost as if they were a couple, although she realized one night of sleeping with him did not mean they were in a relationship. And she doubted Kelsey or Logan had any idea of what was going on between the two of them.

  In some ways, last night seemed as if it had happened long ago. Maybe she’d dreamed it.

  When the food came, she set it up in the back room where they could look out over the pool and patio. It was beautiful out there, lush with croton bushes, palms and more. She had a sea grape tree and a banyan, an avocado and two banana trees, all of them making the pool area almost irresistibly inviting.

  “It’s strange,” she commented, twirling a forkful of linguini. “I can go days without hopping in the pool, but now that I shouldn’t be out on the patio, all I want to do is swim.”

  “Of course,” Dallas said. “Forbidden fruit always looks the most luscious.” He smiled at her.

  Was that all it was? Were they forbidden fruit? she wondered. Thrown together in the midst of a tension-filled life-or-death situation?

  Or had she really fallen for him?

  “We
ll, when this is over, I’m diving straight in,” Kelsey said. “I love the ocean, but when you’re hot and sticky, there’s nothing like a freshwater pool. And this yard is amazing.”

  “Did you put the pool in, Hannah?” Dallas asked.

  She shook her head. “Our uncle put it in about a decade ago. Kelsey and I were in our teens, and he was already running it as a bed-and-breakfast. We’d come and tell ghost stories to the guests, along with cleaning for him, and he’d let us have the run of the place.”

  “Ronin O’Brien, his name was,” Kelsey said. “Our parents were great, but Ronin was cool. Being here was fun.”

  “I apologize if this is a rude question,” Dallas said. “But, Kelsey, did you mind that Hannah got the house? I guess he didn’t have children of his own?”

  Hannah said, “No. He was married when he was young. His wife died of cancer when she was in her thirties. He never fell in love again.”

  “He dated, and Hannah and I would judge the women for him. Oh, and no, I didn’t mind. Hannah was always the historian, and I wanted to be a U.S. Marshal from the time I was a kid. He left me some bonds. But the bottom line is that we both loved him and we knew he loved us. He didn’t need to leave either of us anything.”

  Petrie suddenly jumped up on Hannah’s lap, and she let out a little gasp of surprise. She was amazed at the way the other three jumped into motion, rising, drawing their weapons.

  “Sorry! Sorry! It’s just Petrie,” she said.

  “Petrie!” Kelsey said, walking over to scratch the cat on the head. “You little mongrel. You scared us all to pieces.”

  “I think he just wants to be fed,” Hannah said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She took the cat into the kitchen. Petrie was beautiful. As big as a Maine Coon and just as bushy, he had paws that looked gigantic because each one had six toes.

  “I’m really not forgetting you, but no more just staring out of windows, okay? It freaks me out,” she told him.

  He rubbed against her as she prepared his food, then dug right in when she left to rejoin the others.

  There was a knock at the door just as they finished eating. The first people to arrive were four middle-aged women on a reunion trip together. Three couples followed them, and then a group of six students who were down from Tallahassee.

  “None of them looks dangerous,” Hannah told Dallas in the kitchen as they gathered water bottles to hand around.

  “No,” he agreed. “But Liam and David are on the way, and they’ll be coming with us. We’re not taking any chances. And tonight I’m not so worried about who’s on the tour. I’m more worried about who may be following it.”

  “So should we bait him?” Hannah asked.

  “If we’re going to bait him, we have to figure out the right way to do it. And it’s too dangerous to do it out in the open, where we have no control of the scene. Tonight we’ll just be watching, too.”

  She couldn’t help noticing how close he was to her, how he was smiling at her. She felt as if the world should know there was something special about him, something that called to her, as if she’d longed for him forever somewhere in her soul. He was...

  ...leaving the kitchen without a second glance her way.

  She followed him, mentally kicking herself for being an idiot. Liam and David had arrived by the time she reached the parlor, and she found herself more than usually glad to see them. She was relieved that she would be surrounded by law enforcement tonight. It would be suicidal for someone to go after her.

  Then again, the Wolf’s crew seemed to be suicidal. Maybe it was a requirement of the job.

  As she always did, Hannah began with the history of her own house. One of the women was delighted to tell her that she was certain she had seen Melody Chandler up on the widow’s walk the night before.

  When they left the house, she walked them to Duval and told them stories about the hanging tree in Captain Tony’s Saloon. The building had been erected in 1851 as an icehouse, but it had doubled as the morgue. Sixteen pirates had been hanged from the tree, as well as one woman, who had killed her own family. She was known as the Lady in Blue, some said because she had worn blue when she died, while others said it was because she had turned blue when she was hanged. She was buried beneath the pool table and was known to haunt the bathroom. The late Captain Tony himself had been like a Hemingway character, engaged in all kinds of enterprises, as well as being the mayor of Key West. But it had been a woman, Josie Russell, who had first opened the building as a saloon. It had been called Sloppy Joe’s until a rental dispute had driven the owner to move the well-known Hemingway haunt across the street. Josie packed up all her equipment and alcohol in the middle of the night and moved over to the current location of Sloppy Joe’s on the corner of Duval and Green Street. Key West, however, was a haven for bars. The old Sloppy Joe’s reopened as Captain Tony’s.

  They moved on to St. Paul’s, where an old sea captain haunted the graveyard where he remained along with a number of children who’d died in the fire at the theater nearby. Most of those buried in the graveyard had been moved to the Key West Cemetery, but a few remained. The sea captain was known to have haunted a down-and-out traveler who had decided to sleep there; the children were heard to cry and sing. From the church they moved to the theater where the children had died. That was followed by the La Concha hotel, haunted by both old and new ghosts. The group was delightful, asking questions, commenting and staying close.

  One of the women asked her specifically about the Artist House bed-and-breakfast and one of Key West’s most famous—or infamous—residents, Robert the Doll. Hannah led them down Eaton and stood across the street from the beautiful old Victorian house.

  “Some of you may already have heard of Robert the Doll,” Hannah said. She tried not to be distracted by the crowds streaming past. She told herself that she was virtually surrounded. The Beckett brothers—Liam and David—were there. Kelsey was right at her side. Logan was standing at an angle just in front of her, almost blocking her tour group. And Dallas was so close behind her that he was nearly on top of her.

  “Robert is an interesting case. The natural need of a child for an imaginary friend? Or truly a cursed object? Robert Eugene Otto grew up in the gorgeous Victorian manor across the street from us, now a charming bed-and-breakfast called the Artist House, because Robert did, in fact, grow up to be an artist. Born in 1900, he was a six-year-old boy known as Gene when, in 1906, he was given the doll—which he named Robert—by a Bahamian servant. According to the story, the servant was unhappy with the family. Perhaps they had somehow slighted her. At any rate, she gave the doll to young Gene, and soon afterward his parents would hear him talking to it. The strange thing is, they swore they could hear the doll talking back to him. Sometimes at night Gene screamed. The parents would find him cowering in bed with the room in disarray. No matter what happened, he would always say that Robert the Doll did it.” She smiled and paused.

  “Did Gene Otto just use the doll as an excuse? Or was something strange really going on? He’d walk all over town, dressed in a sailor suit like Robert’s, carrying the doll. Eventually Gene went away to school, and later he married another artist, Anne. There were a number of strange rumors after that. He built a nursery, and Anne thought they were planning for children, but the room was for Robert. There were disturbances at the house, and the police would come and find Anne looking...a little the worse for wear, but Gene would tell people that Robert did it. Truth? Or just a story embellished through the years? No one knows. What is true is that Gene died in 1974. Anne moved back north, where she was from, and she rented out the house with one stipulation. The doll was to go in the turret room, and the door was to be kept locked at all times. Anne died in 1976.

  “The first family to own the house after Anne died had a little girl. In interviews as an adult, she claimed that the doll was curs
ed, that it spoke and did evil things. Workmen claimed that Robert moved their tools. Robert wound up at the Fort East Martello Museum, where he remains today. You can visit him there, but beware. Word is that you must ask Robert’s permission to take his picture, lest your camera be cursed.”

  Dallas suddenly whispered in her ear, “Keep talking, keep them here,” he said.

  Trying to hide the tremor that ran through her at his words, she went on. “Another reason to visit the museum is to take the nighttime haunted tram.”

  “You’re saying we should take another ghost tour, too?” one of the college boys asked her.

  “Absolutely. And by day you definitely have to see the Key West Cemetery. Be sure to get your picture taken in front of the stone that reads ‘I told you I was sick,’” she said. “The cemetery exists because in the mid-1800s a storm raged through Key West. Bodies and bones literally came flooding down Duval Street, washed out of the original cemetery by the storm, so it was decided then to create a cemetery on the highest point on the island. They reburied what bodies they could there, and used it for all future burials.”

  That left her with nothing else to say; she’d finished her story, and it was time to move on. But Dallas was gone—just gone. He had disappeared after whispering to her.

  She looked for Logan, and realized he had stepped away and was on his phone.

  She started ad libbing, pulling up whatever facts she could. “The body of Ian Chandler, the first owner of my home, was one of those that was found after the flood, and though his marker is gone, his remains are still there somewhere,” she said, wondering when someone would grow impatient and ask her what they were seeing next.

  Luckily Logan caught her eye just then. He nodded to her, and gestured. She read his mind.

  Move on, but slowly.

  “And now,” she said, “it’s time for us to head back toward Duval, where I’ll leave you all at the Hard Rock. You can indulge in your complimentary drink and a meal, and perhaps see a ghost on the second floor—especially you ladies, since it’s said that a man named Robert Curry haunts the ladies’ room, where he hanged himself.”